Behind the MoonArk: How a Team of Artists Embraced Science to Send a Time Capsule to the Moon

Science with a Twist

⚡ The MoonArk is both conceptual art and a time capsule. Almost 15 years ago, the idea was to create a time capsule carrying fragments of the world as we know it today and send it to the moon to be discovered in the distant future. Today, the project has 60 members from 18 institutions and over 250 contributing designers, scientists, poets, musicians etc. Mark Baskinger, one of the first to get involved with the project, shares what it was like at the beginning. ''The MoonArk was a conceptual idea concocted by a few pioneering faculty members here, namely, Red Whitaker in the Robotics Institute and Lowry Burgess, former Dean of the College of Fine Arts. And their thought was that if Carnegie Mellon were to go to the moon, it can't just be the sciences and the technologies and that side of campus represented and that the arts would surely have something to contribute.''

⚡ Working on MoonArk was creative and exciting but challenging. As our guests say, creating an object like the MoonArk goes beyond making it look nice. It has to be safe and resilient to different conditions. ''We wanted it to be beautiful and aesthetic. So we went about making it with no real knowledge of what it was going to take to get it there. So, when it was time to put the rubber on the road, we were like, 'Oh, my goodness. It has to go through all this different, rigorous testing,''' says Dylan.

⚡ Many components are handmade. What makes the MoonArk astonishing is the amount of work, especially manual work, that’s been put into its creation. ''[...], a sculptor metal worker made quite a contribution to this project. It was amazing to visit and watch him do this under the monitor, zoomed in significantly — getting to see the intricacy of the work that was a part of it. But the biggest issue was whether those micro welds would be strong and consistent enough to be able to sustain the rigorous trip that the MoonArk was going to go through,'' explains Matt.